Tag / kuih teow soup

One of my favorite hawker style comfort foods is kuih teow soup. Back in Penang, this is a rather ubiquitous dish that you can in just about any kopitiam or food court. However, in Klang Valley, pork noodle seems to take center stage to fill this niche instead. Which can be a good/bad thing depending on your preference.

Restoran Berkeley Sua Teng

The situation in Klang is a little bit different, and I suppose due to the prevalent of bak kut teh which already heavily involves the usage of pork as an ingredient in a dish that involves soup, pork noodle is quite rare, and probably as a side effect, there are some kuih teow soup places instead, such as Restoran Berkeley Sua Teng at Taman Berkeley which I happily discovered just recently.

kuih teow soup, hawker style comfort food

The almost kopitiam style restaurant offers the usual kuih teow soup, curry version, dry version, with rice, and a few other side dishes.

We tried their plain old fashion kuih teow soup which came with bouncy home-made fish balls, fish cake, tofu skin, and a slice of vege. The ingredients may be slightly different from the version I love in Penang, it does still tastes very light and balanced, comforting and perfect for when you’re looking for something light.

fish cake, fuchuk, and suikao, complete with kampong koh chili sauce

For side dishes, we tried their fish cake, sui kao, and tofu skin. These were all deep fried and served with one of the best chili sauce you can get – naturally from Kampong Koh! A satisfying lunch for sure, and I won’t hesitate to go back there again.

Due to the proximity of where I stay, Mingtien food court is my most frequented food court especially when it comes to late dinners.

This huge food court has at least 30-40 hawker stalls at any one time and operates 24 hours a day, which is rather convenient if you’re hungry at the wee hours and don’t feel like going to yet another mamak eatery.

new kuih teow soup and laksa stall at Mingtien food court

When I was first introduced to Mingtien some 10 years ago, most of the stalls were, for the lack of a better word, rubbish. But like many food court that manage to stand the test of time, the bad stalls were eventually replaced with better ones ala Darwinian evolution, and today, most of the hawker stalls actually provide more than decent dishes.

As a fan of Penang kuih teow soup, I was delighted to discover this new stall that offers this dish (in addition to Penang laksa which we haven’t tried). Naturally I had to give it a try.

kuih teow th’ng with coagulated blood and lard

What came was a version that is pretty true to the origin – with shredded steamed chicken, fishball, garlic oil, lard, and even coagulated blood, the rarest of all ingredient to be found in Klang Valley for this dish. The soup was subtle yet supple, and I bet it’ll satisfy any kuih teow soup fan.

I can’t say that the fish ball is top notch, but everything else hits the spot. For RM 5, this is more than just a “tahan gian” dish.

As someone who’s born and bred in Penang, we obviously love our hawker dishes, and hence it is always a mission for many of us Penangites to find the local taste right here in KL whenever we can.

New Apollos kopitiam at USJ 4

Now when most think about hawker foods in Penang, curry mee, prawn mee, laksa, and char kuih teow is often high on the list, and if you mention kuih teow th’ng (or kuih teow soup), many don’t even realize how difficult it is to find a place that offers the dish here in KL. Hence when I accidentally ended up at Restaurant New Apollos in USJ 4 and saw this stall, I knew it was something I had to order.

proper Penang style kuih teow th’ng

The operator (not the one in the picture, she was just the helper) speaks Penang Hokkien, which passed the first litmus test whenever I order Penang food.

When the bowl of kuih teow soup arrived, I was already pretty happy. The dish looked the part, with three fishballs, shredded steamed chicken, a few slices of fish cakes, vegetable, fried garlic, and a few bits of lard.

I was well satisfied with the kuih teow soup

As for the taste, this RM 5 bowl of goodness hits all the right spots. It might lack strips of duck blood, but the fish balls and fish cakes had the right texture and tasted rather good. Portion was not overly big like other KL hawker dishes, and the shredded chicken cooked just right as well.

In fact, I liked it so much I rode all the way from Damansara Perdana to USJ 4 just for this yesterday. This kuih teow soup is now on the top of my list so far as Klang Valley is concerned.

One of my favorite Penang hawker foods is Kuih Teow Soup, or commonly spelled as Kuih Teow Th’ng in Hokkien. It is one of the few comfort foods you can have at any time of the day, any stomach “health” level since it’s soupy and isn’t spicy.

Anson Road market kuih teow th’ng

I was first introduced to this Anson Road market kuih teow th’ng by my mom when she ‘tapao’ a packet for us for breakfast. It immediately became one of my favorites, so I made it a mission to have it at the market itself the following trip back.

kuih teow, chicken, fish ball, and the all important coagulated blood

On the Sunday morning that I went for this, the stall was predictably very busy. I had to wait for 20+ minutes before being served.

The kuih teow soup here is surprisingly simple, with strips of chicken meat & some skin, fish ball, choi sum (vegetable), silky soft kuih teow, fried garlic oil, and most importantly – coagulated chicken blood. While some places utilizes duck meat for a stronger taste, this stall somehow managed to come up with the chicken based soup that’s very sweet and savory in taste, I love it.

I’m a happy camper, definitely worth waking up for

If you don’t mind a bit of wait, this place is definitely worth checking out. Get there before 9+ in the morning though cos they usually sold out early.

That clear soup with home-made fish ball and duck meat is something that you can hardly find in Klang Valley (outside of Penang One), a land where pork noodle rules instead of kuih teow soup, or kuih teow th’ng as we liked to call it in Penang.

This is one of those old school stalls that fortunately, still has the pricing structure of yesteryear. A bowl of kuih teow soup starts from RM 3, and comes with the essential home made fish ball, duck meat, and most importantly, duck skin as well.

The soup is subtle but carry the unmistakeable aroma from boiling duck carcass, the fish ball had a perfect texture and taste, the kuih teow soft but does not break apart, it was an exercise of balance with everything complementing each other.

By the way, you can ask for extra ingredients too. In this case, my choice was some sinful pork skin, oh I miss it.